The pulmonary blood flow or pulmonary perfusion is the rate of flow of the blood passing through the lungs in gas-exchange relation with the respiratory gas contained in the alveoles of the lungs. It is to be noted that this rate of flow is not neccessarily equal to the rate of flow of the blood discharged from the heart, because defects in the blood circulation may result in less than the entire cardiac output reaching the lungs. Moreover, it is not neccessarily equal to the blood flow actually passing through the lungs, because defects of the lungs, such as clogged or collapsed alveols, may result in less than the total blood flow through the lungs coming into gas-exchange contact with the respiratory gas.
Accordingly, the pulmonary blood flow is a measure of the effectiveness of the pulmonary function and obviously is important to examine and measure in patients having an impaired pulmonary function and/or an impaired cardiac function. Of particular interest is the measurement of the pulmonary blood flow in patients having both an impaired pulmonary function and an impaired cardiac function, because many therapeutic methods for improving the pulmonary function impair the cardiac function.
Several different methods for determining the pulmonary blood flow have previously been proposed and have also been practised to some extent. These previously known methods are very complicated and time-consuming, however, and for that reason are not practically useful for clinical purposes. Besides, some of them are invasive. Certain of the previously known methods require that the patient be supplied with respiratory gas that includes non-physiological gases.